A Very Disparate Pair of Poems
I mentioned this first poem in last week’s post, as being unfinished. I am not entirely sure of it even now, but here it is, having gone through multiple alterations.
I prefer my poems to scan clearly, and I feel this one keeps tumbling over those boundaries into some confusion as to what I was trying to say. But I am calling quits on it now and will leave the understanding of it to you, my readers!
On the Night Wind
Go out into the kindness of the night;
What need you more? The silent breeze is not
More visible by day, and it has brought
The night sounds of the earth along its flight,
And scents of far-off cold, unseen yet bright
Beneath the moon, upon the breeze. You thought
These things bore faces, which by day you sought?
The gifts of night are many without sight.
By night they have no faces, and no need;
Night breathes upon the vastness and knows much;
Go out into the night, go out and find
The many things it gives you. Night indeed
Is generous and free; its unseen touch
Is that of angels’ wings: most strong, most kind.
That rather serious Petrarchan sonnet is followed, I’m afraid, by sheer doggerel, composed just Sunday night literally whilst I was digging a hole for planting.
Rhymes do have the advantage of being fairly easy to remember long enough to come indoors and write them down!
The Gardener’s Plaint
I take my spade into the yard;
I have some garden bulbs to plant.
I thrust the spade in and discard
The pebbles; and I do not rant
But scoop the soil here and there,
Unearth the mountains’ building blocks;
I garden on; I don’t despair--
My garden grows the finest rocks!
Finally, I’m proud to announce that I overcame all odds (text formatting, cover set-up and uploading difficulties, to be specific) and now have my poetry collection available in paperback! Click HERE to take a look. It’s now available in paperback and for Kindle both!
I love both of these! Can I copy and share the Night poem? My predecessors in this house were odd and used to hang their laundry on the line for some weeks, and then just drop all the plastic pegs on the ground and buy another packet the next month. So my garden grows plastic pegs! They would sometimes put them in the compost cylinder too. Just in case the garden variety were struggling to grow.